Grammys 2016: preview and predictions

The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, the organization responsible for honoring the year’s greatest musical achievements with the Grammy Awards, released its nominations for 2016 in December 2015. This year’s nominees across all categories were particularly strong, and the race for the most revered award, Album of the Year, contains one of the best groups of candidates in recent memory. The Album of the Year for this selection is especially eclectic, as two nominees — hip-hop artist Kendrick Lamar (nominated for To Pimp a Butterfly) and pop artist Taylor Swift (nominated for 1989) — were both nominated for the same award in 2014. Swift won the award in 2010. On the other hand, a debut album was nominated, that being Traveller by country singer Chris Stapleton, who is best known for his repertoire of country hits he contributed to as a songwriter. Alabama Shakes, the band nominated for Best New Artist in 2013, returns to the awards show for its lauded release of Sound and Color, a blues rock/soul album. The Weeknd receives his first individual Grammy nomination for Beauty Behind the Madness, along with recognition in six other categories. His performances of “The Hills,” which spent six consecutive weeks as Billboard’s No. 1 Song, and “Can’t Feel My Face” were among the most commercially and critically successful singles of the year.

Each of this year’s nominees pose great competition, but upon looking more in-depth at each album and the history of the Academy’s trends in choosing winners, one may be able to narrow the list to fewer likely winners and key decisive traits of each album. One of the clearest is that the Grammy for Best Album has not been awarded to a southern rock or traditional country album since 1969, although there was a nod to Swift’s country/pop Fearless that won Best Album in 2010. It has also not been given to a debut album since Norah Jones’s Come Away with Me in 2003, which puts the odds for Stapleton’s release as an upset.

In the case of Taylor Swift’s album, the first half blew away critics and fans alike, as “Shake It Off” and “Blank Space” claimed high marks on the charts. However, the second half of the album was critiqued by some for not being as enticing. While still likely to win in several other categories, Swift’s main producer Max Martin, whose fingerprints are across all credits on the album, failed to win with “Shake It Off” in the 2015 nominations, which is a bad omen for the album this year.

One may consider the sleeper picks to be the albums of Alabama Shakes and The Weeknd. Sound and Color is just the second release from the Alabama-based band. The album is also nominated for Best Alternative Music Album, but may be less likely to win in that category because of its blues/soul characteristics in a category that has been awarded to predominantly alt-rock albums. However, 2010’s The Suburbs by Arcade Fire — another album nominated in the same categories by a lower-profile band at the time — won Best Album, so one should keep an eye on Brittany Howard’s band. Beauty Behind the Madness poses the second strongest case to win, considering the acclaim and performance of The Weeknd throughout 2015. It will be interesting to see how the Academy receives the Canadian singer, who was largely ignored for his immensely successful mixtapes later compiled into a release as Trilogy and 2013’s Kiss Land, his first label debut that failed to receive a nomination. Beauty Behind the Madness is riveting throughout, with his song “Earned It” even receiving a nomination for an Oscar for Best Original Song,  and The Weeknd’s rise to stardom may earn him this revered honor.

Among the candidates, the most important to watch will be rapper Kendrick Lamar’s funk- and jazz-infused To Pimp a Butterfly. Lamar’s release is already being considered by many as a rap masterpiece, from reports of college courses analyzing the album to nearly perfect reviews from critics to Rolling Stone calling it “one-of-a-kind.” What sets To Pimp apart from the rest, and the songs that Lamar received several nominations for, may be its consciousness of social justice never before so directly and appealingly tackled. Lamar rhymes about the trials and tribulations related to racism, sexism, social class, financial inequality, mental health, incarceration and police brutality that affect communities across America. In an era where rap has been dominated by the idols of wealth, materialism and boasting on those topics; Lamar’s album effuses the soul-searching and realization of many injustices that plague our nation, and the  consequences of popular rap’s image. Yet, popular music tends to turn away from those realities, despite Lamar’s image of reality being far more common than the glamour and opulence of the stars of hip hop. To Pimp a Butterfly, as evocative and grooving as it is musically, is also a call to audiences and listeners of all backgrounds to evaluate their values. An album such as this, especially at a time when the election is near and injustices against minority communities run rampant, is invaluable. The Grammys will be an important platform to recognize this talented and salient performance. However, history could repeat itself, as Lamar’s 2014’s album failed to win, and Macklemore’s The Heist won Best Rap Album in an upset win that same year. Many viewers criticized the Grammy award win as a matter of race and commercialism, as Macklemore himself believed Lamar deserved the award. Undoubtedly, this will be a close Best Album race that music fans will discuss for a long time. The 58th Grammy Awards airs on CBS Feb. 15 at 8 p.m.